The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Spartaz ^Humbug! 15:00, 20 May 2015 (UTC) reply

Bob Doyle (inventor)

Bob Doyle (inventor) (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log · Stats)

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Largely an autobiography, lacking independent sources and making inflated and - ahem - not entirely mainstream claims. Guy ( Help!) 22:29, 10 May 2015 (UTC) reply

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. North America ¹⁰⁰⁰ 01:06, 11 May 2015 (UTC) reply

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions. North America ¹⁰⁰⁰ 01:06, 11 May 2015 (UTC) reply

Note: This debate has been included in the list of News media-related deletion discussions. North America ¹⁰⁰⁰ 01:06, 11 May 2015 (UTC) reply

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Technology-related deletion discussions. North America ¹⁰⁰⁰ 01:07, 11 May 2015 (UTC) reply

• Weak Keep This guy might be notable, but the article doesn't do a very good job proving it. I think instead of delete maybe tag for references. valereee ( talk) 20:26, 11 May 2015 (UTC) reply
• Weak keep - probably notable, but article needs improved to show it. VMS Mosaic ( talk) 10:45, 12 May 2015 (UTC) reply
• Delete I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this guy, while he has an illustrious CV, does not really meet our notability requirements. He has held some academic positions that don't seem to meet WP:PROF. He has self-published at least one book, but it hasn't received wide critical attention - Free Will [1] gets discussed on some blogs but I can't find more serious coverage. He has been awarded patents and been involved in various technological advancements, but there's nothing to say how significant his work is. The best source I could find was Harvard Magazine, which may be generally reliable but probably will tend to cheerlead for Harvard faculty. [2] -- Colapeninsula ( talk) 13:03, 12 May 2015 (UTC) reply

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k ( talk) 18:32, 12 May 2015 (UTC) reply

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k ( talk) 18:32, 12 May 2015 (UTC) reply

• Keep Interesting guy, intellectual, kind of article people who read encyclopedias would like to know about. Wikipedia has articles on cricket players, train stations, comic book characters who are less interesting than Bob Doyle, but no one bothers to get rid of them. His electronic games were best sellers. Simon? have you not seen Simon? Maybe you're too young. Rest of electronics described in article. His informationphilosopher website is REPLETE with good stuff to read. So what it's not conclusive; philosophy never is. He's working at the edge of physics and philosophy where a lot of people are writing and exploring in the last several decades, about info theory and limits of physics. So what he is not accepted as correct yet, it's too early to finally evaluate this stuff, but it's the kind of stuff people want, (the kind of people who want this stuff.) In my opinion. GangofOne ( talk) 09:34, 13 May 2015 (UTC) reply

First, I erred, Doyle did not create Simon (game), he created Merlin (game). "best selling game" of 1980. Check that article to see if it has significance, which would reflect on Doyle, as well as the other 6 games that were put on the market by Parker Brothers. GangofOne ( talk) 21:19, 14 May 2015 (UTC) reply

Sadly, It's interesting is not considered reason for keeping a Wikipedia article. Almost anything is interesting to somebody. WP:FRINGE may also be relevant, which he appears to fail. Colapeninsula ( talk) 10:02, 13 May 2015 (UTC) reply

I suspected calling him "interesting" might trigger WP-is-neutral,-not-interesting rule. I hoped others would get interested. Isn't this the kind of article/person an encyclopedia should be about, not accounts of sport figures/political buffoons? Maybe that's just me. GangofOne ( talk) 21:19, 14 May 2015 (UTC) reply

article changes as we speak; be sure to look at What Links Here, to see how he's connected. I see Two-stage model of free will is also up for deletion, fyi. ‎ His main feature is not that he's FRINGE, it's that he's an academic AND he's a successful electronic game designer/inventor AND he's a philosopher. We need not evaluate the philosophy, that is too much to ask. As far as inventing the podcast , I see his article is the main reference. The inventor part not good enough in combo with the rest? I maintain my KEEP vote. GangofOne ( talk) 09:38, 18 May 2015 (UTC) reply

• delete Sourcing indicates a lack of out-of-the-fringe notability. Mangoe ( talk) 13:14, 13 May 2015 (UTC) reply
• Delete. I too could only come up with that piece in Harvard Magazine. I agree he is an interesting guy, and his ideas on free will has received some attention, but I can't see evidence of "significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources", or any other of the specific notability criteria for academics. Vesal ( talk) 21:13, 14 May 2015 (UTC) reply

• keep Largely because he didn't invent the podcast, but in the US-history version of the web (which is wrong, but the received wisdom on WP), he did so, along with Dave Winer. The early career in astronomy with NASA was new to me, but seems like it ought to pass the notability bar in itself. Andy Dingley ( talk) 00:27, 15 May 2015 (UTC) reply
• Keep. Some of the content will need to be removed. Doyle isn't notable as a philosopher or as an academic but I think the game design work, for example, makes him notable. Roches ( talk) 02:27, 15 May 2015 (UTC) reply

  You think? What about providing some actual evidence? If he played an important role in podcasting or gaming, why isn't he profiled more extensively? There is currently almost zero independent sources about him. That doesn't bother any of you? All we can do is copy his own web page. What's the point in doing that? Vesal ( talk) 02:49, 15 May 2015 (UTC) reply

I've had to listen to Winer / Doyle / Winer / Curry / Winer being listed as "the inventors of podcasting" for 15 years now. Tonight I'm off to a Labs reunion with some of the people who did it a few years earlier. I suspect Microsoft had done it two years before that with CDF. Except we don't even exist because a "Wikipedian in Residence" wrote us (and a $2M project) out of history. History, especially on WP, is controlled by the victors. Doyle was part of the group that became the official WP history of the web. To be fair, I think they probably did invent it independently in RSS 2.0 (just not first) and Doyle deserves some credit for that. Andy Dingley ( talk) 11:28, 15 May 2015 (UTC) reply

Are there any independent reliable sources to back this up? Rlendog ( talk) 21:17, 18 May 2015 (UTC) reply

• keep Article is weak but seems to be enough to build on and has room to grow. I say keep right now and review later. Ozzyland ( talk) 16:32, 15 May 2015 (UTC) reply
• Delete. I don't see any room to build on here Peter Damian ( talk) 17:11, 15 May 2015 (UTC) reply
• Delete Many of the references around have copied each other. VandVictory ( talk) 23:01, 15 May 2015 (UTC) reply
• Delete Very poor references, and only the Harvard Magazine one that could be considered a RS. The article has been around since 2008 and the presumed notability reaches back to the 1960's, so I don't think that there is anything to wait for. LaMona ( talk) 04:49, 17 May 2015 (UTC) reply
• Delete His standing in science is low. Yes he did get a PhD in 1969 then work for NASA for a couple of years until 1972, but that is pretty un-exceptional. As far as I'm aware, he has not been involved in academia since then and has no current position at Harvard. While he self-publishes his ideas about philosophy, he seems to have no standing among academic philosophers. A lot of the claims on his websites about his status in science and philosophy are highly dubious. (I'm not commenting on his career in IT/gaming and patents since that's not something I know about.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.147.6.175 ( talk) 14:25, 17 May 2015 (UTC) reply

consider Merlin (game). Take look at all aspects GangofOne ( talk) 09:38, 18 May 2015 (UTC) reply

• Keep Probably notable enough with some of his inventions. Maduwanwela ( talk) 14:41, 20 May 2015 (UTC) reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.